Mexico Is Rankled By U.s. Pressure Over War On Drugs

Blacklisting Seen As Hypocritical

February 25, 1996|By This account was reported by Colin McMahon in Mexico City, Laurie Goering in Rio de Janeiro and Terry Atlas in Washington and was written by Atlas.

MEXICO CITY — There is no mistaking how Mexicans feel right now about the United States and the war on drugs.

On an afternoon news show last week, Television Azteca interviewed Mexican officials angered by a threat that hangs over the country: The United States may soon declare that Mexico has been insufficiently diligent in fighting the tide of drugs flowing into the U.S. The declaration could trigger a cutoff of all U.S. economic aid.

Then a related news story immediately followed, detailing how drug abuse is rising again in America, especially among the young.

The juxtaposition smoothly conveyed the feelings of many Mexicans, both in and out of government: How can the United States, the world's biggest consumer of illegal narcotics, dare to pass judgment on Mexico for how it fights the drug war?

Like it or not, the Clinton administration is preparing to do just that. On Friday, the administration will announce its list of which countries can be certified as making progress against drug smuggling and production, and which can not.

The president is required by a decade-old provision of the Foreign Assistance Act to declare by March 1 of each year which nations will be certified as fully cooperating with the U.S. against drug trafficking.

Those that don't make the grade face the cutoff of American financial aid and other trade sanctions, a punishment used mainly against countries already on the outs with Washington, such as Iran, Afghanistan, Burma, Nigeria and Syria.

But as foreign policy weapons go, the annual certification exercise is a particularly crude one, as the case of Mexico illustrates.

On one hand, the U.S. is bound ever more tightly to its large southern neighbor because of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the increasing interconnections between the two nations' economies.

Mexico's consul general in New York, Jorge Pinto, publicly criticized Washington's review as "an interventionist practice" that "runs counter to the spirit of cooperation between our two countries."

On the other hand, Mexico remains a major transshipment point for cocaine and other illegal drugs destined for the U.S. Drug smuggling across the long U.S.-Mexico border is rampant.

Moreover, even for countries that don't meet U.S. drug-fighting standards, the law gives the president the option of waiving sanctions for "vital national interests." President Clinton invoked that escape clause last year after decertifying Colombia and its Andean neighbors, Peru and Bolivia.

So even the symbolism of decertification does not necessarily lead to any actual consequences for the countries that are targeted.

"It a double-edged sword that can jolt them into action, but it can be seen as another form of Yankee interventionism . . . that breeds resentment," said Paul Stares of the Brookings Institution, author of "Global Habit: The drug problem in a borderless world."

The stakes are particularly high this year for Mexico as well as for Colombia, the biggest cocaine producer, where President Ernesto Samper is facing charges he accepted millions of dollars in political contributions from the Cali drug cartel.

The major smuggling routes for Colombian cocaine have shifted in recent years from the Caribbean and southern Florida to the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border. Nearly three-quarters of the Colombian cocaine consumed by Americans is shipped through Mexico.

Increasingly powerful Mexican drug gangs also grow marijuana and refine opium into heroin, and they have become the biggest players in the growing American market for methamphetamines, on the street called "speed." The result is that billions of dollars of drug money flow into Mexico each year, corrupting police and politicians, as well as banks and businesses.

Some U.S. law enforcement officials and members of Congress want Mexico decertified to send a clear message that President Ernesto Zedillo de Leon must do more to loosen the grip of drug lords on the country.

"Mexico is in serious jeopardy of becoming a drug-dominated narco-democracy," declared Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who is sounding anti-drug and anti-illegal immigration themes as she prepares for a possible gubernatorial campaign against Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

After championing NAFTA and offering Mexico a $20 billion bailout last year, Clinton would be staging a startling turnabout if he decertifies Mexico.

But Mexico is alarmed by even the possibility that Washington would lump it with such U.S.-declared narco-nations as Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.

Mexican Foreign Secretary Jose Angel Gurria Trevino flew to Washington last week and warned Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno that such action could trigger a political backlash in Mexico that would set back anti-drug efforts and other cooperation.